Remember when Epic Games flew the Xbox 360 flag with Gears of War? Those were the days. Now we get Paragon (open beta), a not-bad MOBA; Fortnite (alpha), a base-building survival game in development for six years now; and a new, somewhat openly developed Unreal Tournament (pre-alpha).

Oh, and one other game, just announced: Battle Breakers. A turn-based tactical role-playing game for mobiles and PC, with cross-platform play.

Battle Breakers looks like typical mobile fare, with your team's heroes stood on hex grids on your side, facing off against enemies standing on hex grids on their side. There's an anime style and tone to the whole thing, with loud noises and flashy abilities. Do I sound old yet?

Former American football player and wrestler Lenwood "Hard Rock" Hamilton is suing the devs behind Gears of War, claiming that his likeness was stolen in the creation of the character Augustus Cole, aka the Cole Train.

Whatever your stance on the humble moustache, mutton chops, beard or goatee, facial hair can be found growing with reckless abandon on a number of gaming's most memorable protagonists (and a few forgettable ones to boot). Once you delve a bit deeper, however, a pattern starts to emerge from among the bristles; facial hair is, basically, game developer shorthand for emotional development.

UPDATE: Gears of War creator Clifford Bleszinski has confirmed that he will not be working on the next Gears game in any capacity.

"I'm not going to move to Vancouver and work on it," Bleszinski said on his Clifford Unchained blog. "I'm not going to consult on it."

This isn't so say that he's bitter about the change. In fact, he's looking forward to this new take on the series given how well Microsoft handled the Halo property after giving it to newcomers 343. "343 knocked it out of the park with Halo and I think Black Tusk will do a fantastic job with Gears," Bleszinski stated.

"Fundamentally children should not be playing 18-rated games," UK industry counters.

A senior Scottish policeman has called for a second look into the prevention of children playing adult-rated games online after a 13-year-old boy slashed a friend's throat with a knife following a Gears of War 3 session.

Doors open in the video games industry for someone like Cliff Bleszinski. He's famous in these parts. He left Epic Games in October and got away from it all, put some trunks on, went on holiday and spent time with his wife. Now he's had his break, what does he plan to do?

Epic has unveiled Unreal Engine 4 with stunning screenshots that showcase what will hopefully be possible with the next generation of consoles.

In a Wired article, Epic staff discussed the tech, which was shown behind closed doors and under NDA at the Game Developers Conference earlier this year.

The screenshots above are taken from the 153 second Unreal Engine 4 real-time demo powered by the Nvidia Kepler GTX 680. It shows an armoured demon knight in a mountain fortress. Lava flows as the knight wields a huge hammer as he enters a metal corridor before looking out at mountain peaks. It's designed to show lens flare, distortion, environmental destruction and other fancy graphics techniques.

Epic has announced Gears of War 3 DLC Forces of Nature, due out on 27th March.

Forces of Nature is a collection of three new maps, each set during a natural disaster, and two remakes from previous Gears games. The new maps are Aftermath, Artillery and Cover. The remakes are Jacinto (Gears of War 2) and Raven Down (Gears of War 1).

Gears executive producer Rod Fergusson announced the DLC on GameTrailers, explaining how they work.

The new IP from Gears of War developer Epic Games to be announced at the Spike Video Game Awards this weekend will be "radically different" and is intended to be a "departure" for the US studio, it has said.

Epic Games' design director Cliff Bleszinski will this weekend unveil a new title incoming from the Gears of War developer.

As teased in a Spike video today, Bleszinksi will take to the stage at the annual VGA event in Los Angeles to formally unveil the new project.

That's all we know for now, other than that it's in development at Epic's North Carolina HQ, unlike recent releases Infinity Blade and Bulletstorm which were farmed out to Chair Entertainment and People Can Fly, respectively.

IT'S ALL OVER! Winners have been/are being notified. Thanks to all who entered!

UPDATE: And we're done! Thanks to everyone who entered and thanks to Microsoft for providing so many amazing prizes. We have notified 11 out of 12 winners as of Wednesday 22nd December and will be speaking to yesterday's victor this morning. Congratulations if you won and watch out for more massive giveaways on this scale in the future!

Epic Games has released the second title update for Xbox 360 exclusive Gears of War 3.

It combats a number of exploits, fixes lost progress and profile issues, and adds a spectator mode.

Microsoft is rolling out the title update today, which means the game's dedicated servers will not be available. When it is live in your region, you will be prompted to download the update if you are connected to Xbox Live.

This week, you get your third chance to experience one of the most thrilling and absorbing templates for a single-player campaign this generation. Yep - Capybara's wonderful Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes has been released on PC!

It's here, the Eurogamer Expo 2011, our fourth and biggest year so far. We've taken all your feedback from the past three years, and our experience, and come up with a show we want to go to. Tickets have basically gone (there are scraps so be quick), and we're all wibbly-wobbly at the knees to see first hordes trample through the doors. You'll get extra marks for spotting me at the show and I may even kiss you.

The smart money says we're nine months away from the reveal of brand-new Xbox hardware, that major advances in visual technology are being held back by the hardware limitations of six-year-old architecture. Gears of War 3 begs to differ. Developed in parallel with the hugely popular Unreal Engine 3 technology, the game looks absolutely remarkable: put it side-by-side with the last game, or even up against Epic's own Bulletstorm, and it's clear that the current gen is still capable of some genuine surprises.

So where do you go after "bigger, better and more badass"? The guiding principle for Gears of War 2 produced a masterclass in sequel design, taking a monstrously successful concept, ironing out the kinks and delivering one of the most thrillingly memorable blockbusters of this generation.

Back still further, as Halo had with the original Xbox, Gears of War's debut defined not just a platform, but also expectations for a new era of high-definition console gaming with a stunning demonstration of technical prowess.

In triple-A action, Cliff Bleszinksi and his team could not unreasonably argue that they were always one step ahead of their rivals in terms of raw spectacle with the first two Gears titles. But, of course, someone would always come along to match and then surpass that step.

Gears of War 3 gets a DLC season pass offering customers a 33 per cent saving on the forthcoming shooter's first four add-ons, publisher Microsoft has announced.

Available from the game's 20th September launch priced at 2400 Points, the virtual voucher lets you download the first four packs on the day they release and also throws in access to the exclusive Liquid Metal Weapon Set.

The first DLC pack for the game lands in November, though there's no word yet on what form it will take.

While Sony strutted its stuff at Gamescom through the power of a press conference, Microsoft walked a more modest path with a Play Day event, with hands-on opportunities of a raft of Xbox 360 exclusive games including Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Gears of War 3 and Forza 4.

Gears of War developer Epic is in development on a "new unannounced IP", according to a recent job listing.

As spotted by French site Xboxygen, a recruitment call on its website states, "Epic Games is looking for Gameplay Programmers to join the team currently working on Gears of War 3, as well as a new unannounced IP in development."

The studio currently has no announced projects past Gears of War 3, which is due to ship for Xbox 360 on 20th September.

With the current generation of HD consoles nowhere near their sell-by date, the recent release of the Gears of War 3 multiplayer beta is noteworthy for several reasons. Not only is this the first opportunity we have had to get hands-on with the game - an event in itself - but it also serves to give us a preview of the kind of technological enhancements we will find as standard in future games using Epic's highly popular Unreal Engine 3 technology.

But let's kick off by saying that this is far from the definitive word on what must surely be the most important Xbox 360 exclusive of the year. Not only does the studio still have months of development time left, but the sample code only covers a significantly cut-down portion of the multiplayer offering. In the single-player campaign, we can expect to see the UE3 rendering tech being tested in significantly more strenuous circumstances, with larger levels, more enemies and of course mammoth bosses to factor into the equation.

That's not to say that this beta isn't content-rich though - with four maps, three gameplay modes and a large array of unlockables, the Gears 3 beta offers many hours of action before all its secrets are revealed, and across the course of this feature you'll find bespoke performance analysis videos for each of the game's quartet of stages, but to cut a long story short, frame-rate is just one a series of improvements that characterises the enhancements made to the core Unreal Engine 3 technology.

Today the Gears of War 3 multiplayer beta kicks off for those who bought the Epic Edition of Bulletstorm. Epic reckons a million gamers will take part, enjoy the carnage and unlock special items for use in the full game.

It's impossible to play Gears of War 3's multiplayer beta without hearing an internal narration from Cliff Bleszinski. Roadie-running from our spawn, shotgun cocked, the first thing we see is a chicken. "That's no chicken, that's a mother****ing Gears chicken!"

You shoot; the bird explodes with a comical blast. Blood and feathers coat the screen. "Ka-boooom, right!?!"

Right. Gears 3 is a triple-quarter pounder: all the cover-dancing gib fireworks you know and love, smothered in an overhauled progression system with more weapons, characters, unlockables and screen-filling stattage. Gears of War 2 had its own progression system but this is in a different league. After every game ribbons and medals cascade onto the screen, thousands of points pour into the experience bank and progression towards other goals is soberly noted.

Epic has described the exclusive items unlocked by playing the Gears of War 3 multiplayer beta as "carrots" designed to entice gamers to play it long enough for the development team to gain proper feedback.

Players will receive unlockables including a Beta Tester Medal, Thrasball Cole playable character and a Gold-Plater Retro Lancer by playing many matches in the beta.

The medal is awarded for completing one match in the beta. You get Thrasball Cole character variant for playing 50 matches, but to unlock him for use in the main game you need to play 10 matches as him during the beta. And the exclusive Gold-Plated Retro Lancer skin, which Epic says allows gamers to show their "ultimate Gears of War fandom", is unlocked after completion of 90 matches in the beta. To unlock it in the full game, you need to score 100 kills with it.

It is possible that Epic's impressive Samaritan Unreal Engine 3 tech demo, showcased at the Game Developers Conference last week and designed to offer a glimpse at what next-generation visuals may look like, will spawn an actual game.

At a hands-on event in San Francisco yesterday Epic Games revealed and detailed the maps you'll be playing in the Gears of War 3 beta, set to launch this spring.

Checkout is, according to Eurogamer's man in San Fran Christian Donlan, is "cruel, claustrophobic, and daringly small: a tight collection of aisles and corridors surrounded by ruptured shelving and tills, and lit by shafts of light pouring in from the glass ceiling."

Thrashball is "a bit bigger, and not quite as open-plan as the whole sports stadium gig suggests". "Rising up out of battered team locker rooms, you'll find yourself on a pitch criss-crossed with plenty of low cover, while a lopsided Jumbotron hangs overhead."

How do you follow a game like Gears 2? What do you need to dream up in order to compete with a weighty thrill-ride that pitched its players headfirst into frantic Brumack warfare, before sending them wriggling through the shifting guts of a giant city-sinking worm?

Both locations have been plucked from the still rather mysterious central campaign and spun into multiplayer arenas, forming Checkout (wonderfully, I am not making that name up) and Thrashball respectively.

Gears of War 3 has a new and final global release date: 20th September 2011.

Microsoft community man Graeme Boyd tweeted the date moments ago. Japan, incidentally, will get Gears of War 3 two days later on 22nd September.

Gears of War 3 suffered a delay from April to autumn 2011 back in October 2010. This happened to coincide wonderfully with the Eurogamer Expo 2010, where the inventive Gears of War 3 Beast multiplayer mode was playable.

A range of officially branded Gear of War 3 peripherals is in the works, including controllers and headsets.

According to VG247, peripheral specialists MadCatz has teamed up with developer Epic Games to produce and market accessories for the upcoming sequel, just as it did with both prior Gears of War titles.

"We are delighted to extend our relationship with Epic Games and look forward to creating a distinctive range of accessories for the next release of one of the most successful franchises in the industry's history," explained Mad Catz CEO Darren Richardson.

Every year at the Eurogamer Expo we invite you to tell us what you thought of the games you played, and without fail every year (so far anyway) you exhibit amazing taste in huge numbers. This year's Expo line-up was our strongest and most diverse yet, so we were excited to see what would follow in the footsteps of last year's winner, God of War III, or 2008's Mirror's Edge...

Eurogamer is delighted to announce that legendary British game developer Peter Molyneux will be kicking off the Eurogamer Expo developer sessions this year with a talk on Fable III, giving behind the scenes detail and revealing his inspiration for the series.

Epic Games' vice president Mark Rein has told an audience at GameHorizon in Gateshead that blockbuster games will not be consigned to history by the rise of formats like iPhone, but will thrive on them instead.

First things first: this isn't a hands-on with or any kind of preview of the Gears of War 3 campaign. The gameplay footage from the Microsoft conference is as much as you, me or anyone else is getting. Might as well watch it one more time, eh?

Details on Gears of War 3's weapons, dynamic environments and additional combat systems have tumbled out in a new translation of the Russian preview that Cliff Bleszinski was grumpy about the other day.

Thanks to a Russian friend of Digital Foundry editor Rich Leadbetter, we know a number of additional details. For example, Gears 3 features a new grenade launcher with grenades that burrow underground and emerge on the other side of cover to strike enemies even when they're protected.

There's also a double-barrel shotgun that fires both shells simultaneously, and a single-shot rifle that does increasing damage when you achieve consecutive hits on the same target.

Update: Microsoft has just issued a press release confirming the 8th April 2011 release date for Europe.

Original story: Epic Games lead designer Cliff Bleszinski made his delayed appearance on NBC's Late Night with Jimmy Fallon tonight to reveal what Bleszinski called "the worst-kept secret in the video game industry, that we're working on Gears of War 3."

The highlight of the appearance, of course, was what Fallon referred to as "the world-premiere trailer for a game that's going to blow your pants off".